Frontline

by Alexandra Richland

  “Tonight I’m going to visit my aunt and uncle in Alexandria, but tomorrow, I should be totally free.”

  Chris initially took it as just a simple answer, but the hope in her voice when she emphasized should be totally free and looked at him, eyebrows raised, in a Come and get it way quickly clued him in.

  On the other hand, in Chris’ mind, something is lost when a woman takes the lead. It robs the situation of its mystery—she likes me, she likes me not—and the thrill of the chase, which is one of the most exciting aspects for any man in pursuit of the opposite sex. Not that he regretted what Amanda’s forwardness led to the next day, and the next one after that, both spent in a Washington hotel room.

  Denim laid it on thick, but Chris remembers enjoying every drop. Behind the buzz from Denim’s flirtations, Chris felt she held more than just a casual interest in him. The way she looked at him when they were first introduced, and the way she hugged him when he made sure Sara’s apartment was clear of danger, made Chris feel not only appreciated, but needed. He’d been thinking about that look on her face a lot since then. He’d been thinking about the rest of her a lot since then, too.

  “So tell me about the importance of a challenge,” Chris says.

  By the size of the grin that appears on Sean’s face, he’s only too willing to oblige.

  “The thing about chicks like Kelly is that inasmuch as they talk to you like they want you to go away, they’re really saying they want you to come closer. It’s a test to see how determined you are. That determination is a measurement of how much you value them. And chicks like Kelly need to be valued.”

  “See, I think it’s exactly the opposite,” Chris says. “When a woman plays games with you, it’s just for her own entertainment. She wants to see how much of your dignity you’re willing to sacrifice. And it’s only when she’s stolen every ounce of that dignity and you’re on your knees in front of her that she’ll finally take pity. How can there be a future in that? How can she even respect you?”

  Sean chuckles. “Well, aren’t you a romantic.”

  “I’m just saying some women are capable of real evil.”

  “That’s only the case if you step onto the field unprepared, my friend.” Sean glances in his side mirror as a man in a long, black trench coat carrying a duffle bag limps past the car, either drunk, or injured, or both. “It’s like being handed a rifle and getting deployed before even completing basic training. You’re doomed.”

  Chris sighs. “No training is enough. Women are crazy.”

  “You’re right. They are. And you’re right about something else, too: Women play games. But if you’re armed with a system I developed called The Five R’s, you will win every round. That’s a guarantee.”

  “I know you’re gonna tell me anyway, so you don’t have to wait for me to ask.”

  Sean rubs his hands together and nods. “Finally you take an interest in furthering your education. It goes like this: Relax. That’s what the first R stands for, and it’s probably the most important one. Any time you’re talking to a chick, you gotta relax.”

  Chris lifts his head from its perch against his fist and glares at Sean. “Yeah, that kinda goes without saying.”

  Sean points his finger directly in the air like a university professor at his pulpit, bestowing his wisdom on the young, eager masses. “No, it most certainly does not. When men are nervous, they don’t think straight. They say stupid things. They fidget. Women can sense that and it makes them uncomfortable. They retreat to their friends. You’ll never get another chance if you fuck up like that. She’ll stay away for good.”

  Sean would never admit it if asked—his stock answer being that he developed The Five R’s after years of watching other men make mistakes, his personal track record with women being flawless—but a few points are actually derived from personal experience. He can’t even count the number of times, early on, of course, that conversations with girls ended awkwardly. He’d walk away, cursing himself, wondering how the hell he came up with such goofy statements. It’s like a floodgate opened in his brain and sent a torrent of nonsense rushing out of his mouth that he couldn’t plug.

  Years passed before Sean invented one mantra that became his game changer: They all want you. Those four words served him more faithfully than a standard issue M-16 assault rifle and proved just as deadly. From then on, no matter how gorgeous the girl he approached, with his bold declaration repeating in his head, the floodgates crumbled and the torrent of nonsense evaporated. Victory followed.

  “Okay, that makes sense. Go on. Second R.”

  Sean points to his right ring finger. “The second R is Relate. Women have different ways of probing men if they’re interested in them. Most will ask a bunch of questions—the everyday stuff like what do you do, where you’re from, blah, blah, blah—and they’re hoping for the same in return. It shows you’re as interested in them as they are in you. Some will try to be witty, speak real quick, use a lot of one-liners. Some will even tease you good-naturedly. You gotta give that back to them.”

  Chris rolls his eyes. “I’m not big on the witty attempts.”

  “Or they’ll be bitches and try to intimidate you to see what you’re made of. That’s Kelly’s tactic.”

  Sean remembers the encounter just days ago outside the hospital when Trenton had the bright idea to invade Sara’s place of work in order to force her to see him. Kelly’s hellcat approach on the sidewalk had Trenton’s men on high alert, and Sean was thankful for the sunglasses that masked what may have been a hint of intimidation watering his eyes when she came at him, all teeth and claws.

  It took a moment to summon his mantra and engage her appropriately. He knew he gave her what she needed the moment she flicked her hair over her shoulders and retreated to her cab. He caught the tiny smirk on her lips, a sign of approval that he’d passed her first test, though certainly many more trials awaited. No single thought excited him more.

  “The point here is to try to relate to her. Never be intimidated. And if she’s the twenty-thousand-questions type, she’s trying to find some kind of common bond that you can use as a jump-off point. ‘Oh, you grew up in Long Island? No shit! Me, too!’ And then it starts.”

  Chris blinks a few times as the realization hits him that there might be some actual wisdom in Sean’s words, rather than the macho bravado and endless stories of female conquest he expected at the outset of the lecture.

  Certain tips seem familiar to him but he learned them during different times in his life. He never collected his own insights into female pursuit and compiled it into a lesson like this. Now he’s glad Sean did.

  “Relate. Okay, that makes sense, too. Continue.” Chris straightens his posture.

  “Very well, then, the third R stands for Respond. Once a certain amount of relating has taken place, it’s natural that things will progress. Beyond what’s similar in your experiences, how will you now react if, let’s say you’re standing in front of each other, maybe leaning on the bar, and you say something funny, she laughs, and she puts her hand up and shoves you gently, kind of an Oh, get outta here! thing, but instead of a push, it’s more of a way to touch your chest? Or her foot brushes your shin beneath the table when you’re sitting across from her? Or the back of her hand touches yours if you’re walking alongside each other?”

  “So she’s looking for you to reciprocate . . .”

  “Exactly.” Sean pounds his hand on the steering wheel like he’s dinging a game show bell to signal a correct answer. “Respectfully, of course, depending on the situation and the chick. Some will make it more obvious than others. But for the most part, she’s putting it out there and wants you to meet her halfway.”

  “Or you could just be like Trent and swoop in for the kiss ten seconds after saying hello.”

  The car shakes as both men break into laughter.

  “That move I would not recommend,” Sean says when he catches his breath. “It leads to a lot of nasty red handprints across the ch
eeks. But if there’s one person who can get away with shit like that, it’s Trent.”

  “Okay, fourth R, give it to me.”

  “Now, keep in mind, all these things don’t always happen in the same night. I mean, relaxing should always be there, and relating will have to happen from the get-go, or what else is the point in talking? But sometimes, depending on just how smoothly the first three R’s guide you, the fourth R is inevitable: Rock n’ Roll.”

  “Is this what I think it is?”

  “You know it!” Sean taps his crotch like a cowboy taps his holster. “There are no two ways about it: the clothes are off, the game is on. Now, I know you’ve got your own methods when it comes down to it, so I’ll leave it up to you. Just remember that if you go down on her first, she’s yours for life.”

  “That’s dirty.”

  Sean chuckles. “In the best possible way.”

  The theme from Jaws interrupts the conversation. Sean presses his finger to the screen of his cell phone and lifts it to his ear.

  “You got eyes on him?” He slides his hand into the door release, pulls it, and pushes the door open with his elbow. “Skinny jeans, a dress shirt with a bow tie, and a woolen hat? Sounds like our guy.”

  Chris pushes open the passenger side door and exits the car in time to see a tall, lanky man fitting that description appear from around the corner two blocks ahead, walking in their direction. He carries a canvas messenger bag over his left shoulder.

  “Thanks, Ben. Stand down. We’ll apprehend.”

  “He’s carrying a bag,” Chris says.

  Sean raises his eyebrows at Chris over the hood of the car. “What do you figure—a couple books by Chomsky? A bag of organic trail mix?”

  “I take it you’re not anticipating a threat.”

  They duck behind a navy minivan parked in front of their Town Car and peer up the street through its rear window.

  “He’s headed for that house, number nineteen. He rents the basement unit,” Sean says.

  A low, wrought-iron fence encloses a tiny front yard of potted plants sitting next to a steep staircase. The stairs lead up to a solid wood front door. Iron bars guard the ground floor and basement windows. Two strips of masking tape form an X over the basement windowpane.

  “Figure it’s some kind of signal to his Deep Throat in the Pentagon?” Chris says, motioning to the X.

  “Nothing that exciting. Probably just the signal to the mailman for where to drop off the issues of Scenester Monthly.”

  Mike strides down the sidewalk, but suddenly freezes. He glares at the minivan Sean and Chris hide behind and reaches for his messenger bag.

  “Oh shit,” Sean says. “Did he see us?”

  “How could he?”

  Mike pulls the snap on the top flap of the bag and shoves his hand inside.

  Sean and Chris pull guns from the holsters inside their suit jackets and stay crouched behind the rear of the van.

  “What the fuck? How could he have seen us?”

  “Did he make Red Team on the other street?”

  Sean cocks his gun as Mike retrieves a square black object from the bag and raises it to the side of his head.

  “Hello?” he says into it.

  Chris and Sean both sigh.

  “Okay, so how do you wanna play this? Good cop-bad cop?” Sean’s voice barely rises above a whisper.

  Chris shakes his head. “Something new. He might be wise to that.”

  “Trent said just to scare him. We can’t go all Wild West.”

  Chris frowns. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”

  Sean takes a seat on the fender of the minivan as Mike smiles and shifts his weight from his left fluorescent green sneaker to the right. He steps back and leans against the iron fence of the neighboring townhouse. The street is silent, but he speaks so softly into the phone, his voice is nothing but a murmur by the time it reaches Sean and Chris.

  “It looks like he’s settling in for a couple minutes,” Sean says.

  “We’ve got time, then. What’s the fifth R?”

  “Ah, the fifth R. That one’s simple: Reset.”

  “Reset?”

  “Sure. You’ve done the work, you’ve claimed the prize. Time to move on. Clean the slate.”

  “Aw, man,” Chris says. “You had me going this whole time. I thought it was going to be something way more profound.”

  “Hey, if you wanna make it the Four R’s in your practice, go right ahead.”

  “It’s just that I don’t think Kelly and Denim are the types to accept getting reset. Know what I mean?”

  Sean nods thoughtfully. “I getcha. If you’re interested, there are a bunch more tips for escaping from the clutches of that pesky sort. But that’s for another stakeout.”

  Mike’s voice rises as he wraps the conversation up. “All right, see you tonight then . . . yeah . . . yeah, for sure . . . for sure . . . okay . . .”

  Sean glances at his cell phone screen once more before setting it to silent mode. “Shit, text from Trent.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “Office in fifteen.”

  “Fuck, we gotta make this quick.”

  “Let’s go.” Chris steps out from behind the minivan.

  Mike reaches his front gate. His back faces Chris and he’s still distracted on the phone.

  “Wait! What routine?”

  “Just follow my lead,” Chris calls over his shoulder.

  He’s not afraid of losing the element of surprise as he stalks up behind Mike. He and Sean have a job to do, and they have to do it quick. Something far more important is going on at Trent’s office, and they have fifteen minutes to take care of this amateur snoop and get over there.

  Chris knows exactly what kind of smarmy dick he’s dealing with. He slams his hands against both of Mike’s shoulders from behind, sending Mike flying over the wrought-iron gate and his cell phone clattering to the sidewalk. This scrawny bag of bones poses no physical threat to Chris or Sean, and in a short time, he’ll be scared enough never to pose any kind of threat again—not for money and not as a favor to a hot girl.

  Trenton counts on Chris and Sean to help him with whatever problems he faces. This meeting he wants them to attend in fifteen minutes no doubt has something to do with Sara. She’s the lone thought that inhabits Trenton’s mind these days, and Trenton is a mono-tasker who focuses on one obsession at a time, like fencing, his knife collection, his company, and most recently, aid for Haiti.

  It stands to reason that whatever plan Trenton is concocting, it will involve seeing Sara somehow, some way, and sometime soon. But the most exciting realization for Chris is that beautiful women like to band together, so wherever Trenton wants to meet up with Sara, there’s a good chance Denim will be there, too.

  Dust

  By the third day, no one needed search and rescue gear to locate the bodies. Their odor rose through piles of concrete, mortar, steel, plaster, and wood—the fetid smells of rotting flesh.

  Trenton Merrick straps a dust mask around his face, nothing more than what a house painter might wear, and breathes through his mouth. The stink settles on his tongue and sticks inside his cheeks. He tastes it in every bite of his food ration, every swallow of bottled water, and the thick saliva that pools on the back of his tongue.

  The landscape looks the same for miles in every direction: piles of rubble and crushed cinderblock, steel cables and twisted aluminum, smashed glass strewn through the streets like it all fell from the sky. A vibrant city street now reduced to a junkyard.

  Dust. It drifts on the tropical breeze, billows behind the motorized vehicles trying to navigate their way through crumbled buildings, and rises from the boots of rescue workers and the sneakered, sandaled, or bare shuffling feet of the Haitians. The pores of Trenton’s sweaty arms, forehead and cheeks tingle. Layers form after hours in the sun, a dark crust leaving his skin cracked and bleeding. Two days ago, his white T-shirt gleamed. Now it’s as charcoal gray as the gloves covering his numb hands.
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  “Careful, Mr. Merrick!” shouts Kency, as the piece of plank board Trenton stands on shifts beneath him. He stumbles, but manages to heave the brick he carries onto a pile of clay roof shingles. It smashes the shingles into tiny pieces. Another dust cloud explodes.

  “Better garbage than your foot,” Kency says. A thick sheen of sweat glows beneath the dusty coating on his young face. His New York Knicks jersey, at least three sizes too big, fits him like a dress, covering his spindly legs almost to his knees. A red baseball cap sits backward on his head and white teeth gleam between chapped lips. To Trenton’s amazement, Kency always smiles.

  Trenton first noticed Kency in a crowd that gathered at the front of a building where Trenton and two Belgian aid workers rescued an elderly woman the day after the earthquake. They guided her down to the street on a hard plastic stretcher the Belgians brought with them, but when they laid her on the ground in front of the hospital amongst the rows of other wounded, the Belgians needed the stretcher back. Trenton stayed with the woman and held her hand until she fell asleep. He hadn’t seen the Belgians since and didn’t even know their names. They’d probably moved on to another part of the city or one of the surrounding villages.

  Kency stepped from the crowd and followed Trenton when he left the hospital, his bright blue jersey glowing in Trenton’s periphery. When Trenton chose this building to work on, Kency started shifting bricks alongside him without a word.

  Trenton steadies himself against a piece of wood lattice and catches his breath. He runs his right arm over his forehead and smears the dust into a streak of black film. He regrets telling Randall, Chris, and Sean to stay in New York and fill the plane with more supplies each time it returns. Kency had been good company over the last day, but Trenton could use his three best friends now more than ever.

  “Help me with this last thing,” he says.

  Kency crouches at the opposite end of a wood door that’s fully intact. Trenton bends his legs, straightens his back, and counts. On three, the two of them hoist the door and toss it a few feet away, where it crashes against a pile of jagged concrete and splits in half.